“It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he’s the one who proposed this national security force. I’m just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may – may not, I hope not – but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism.”
Broun here is picking up on comments Obama made in a speech in July when he advocated creating a federalized police force. Obama stated in his comments in July that he desired this force to be just as strong and just as equipped as our military.
“That’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did. When he’s proposing to have a national security force that’s answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he’s showing me signs of being Marxist.”
Paul Broun, the US Congressman from Georgia’s 10th district, mulled out lout that after Obama has his federalized police force in place he will ban gun ownership.
“We can’t be lulled into complacency. You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I’m not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I’m saying is there is the potential.”
Thank you Congressman Broun. Now, will your Republican peers get behind this statement or will they kiss up to the Nazi fifth column media and laugh at you and mock you?
(All blocked quotes are from US Congressman Paul Broun — Georgia 10th district.)
You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany.
Bingo!! Anyone who thinks it can’t happen (isn’t happening) here is the epitome of naïvete. And the term naïve is a kindness. But what else would one expect from a generation educated by the state.
Just wondering, did Congressman Broun make these comments before or after last Tuesday?
Well for the reaction from the cheap seats go here.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/11/obama-derangeme.html
While there are some that understand Broun’s concern, most are oblivious or just bury their heads in the sand stupid.
Rachel,
After the election. He may have thought that the couldn’t have won his seat if he had said them before the election.
Broun voted for the Patriot Act. A guy like this is worried about the police state when he helped to bring it about.
Mark,
I must admit that even I am arguing with myself over how much of this is hyperventilating and how much is only reasonable observation.
I mean, you grow up thinking that this kind of thing, by definition, just can’t happen in this country.
Joshua,
Even a hypocrite can be right.
Actually he didn’t vote for the Patriot Act but did vote for wiretapping and torture:
http://www.ontheissues.org/GA/Paul_Broun_Homeland_Security.htm#08-HR3773
A hypocrite can be right, and it’s good that he is, but it’s a bad situation when hypocrites are the leaders of our cause. I’m not anticipating the day when National Security Republicans are the champions of what little freedoms we have left. Just like I didn’t like that leftists during the last eight years were perceived as being pro-civil liberties.
My favorite professor at A&M loves to point out stylistic nuances of political positions because he believes that the demonizing rhetoric employed tends to obscure issues rather than elucidating them.
He enjoys pointing out that “socialism” when taken strictly, is a political positions where the means of production are all owned by the State. He then likes to point out that none of the candidates favor this, but all of them approve “mild” redistribution policies.
My professor has himself been labeled a Marxist and a socialist, though he seems incensed by such labels, and wonders how he could be coined as such because his own views are rather conservative on cultural issues and “classically liberal democratic” on economic and foreign policy issues.
The problem, it seems to me, is that people wish to find implications that are not there, or, finding legitimate implications, are unable to articulate why such implications follow.
Earlier in the week this same professor laid out a case for arguing about abortion that was intended to shift the ground from definition (where the pro-lifers live) to desired consequences (where the pro-choicers reside). His sophistry was rather boundless as he talked of preserving “maternal life” of those “mothers” who would be compelled to perform back-alley coat-hanger abortions upon themselves if abortion were made illegal.
Who would consider such a person a “mother” who exhibits “maternal life”–such a person–who destroys the fruit of her womb, the very thing that would define her as a mother?
Also, what consequences may follow are only discerned according to what principles one desires to be upheld–the empirical fallacy is so overlooked that it becomes a shame to advocates of “consequences.” Are the deleterious effects of guilt upon women who abort worth consideration? How about the social effects resulting from the loss of people groups and economic classes who commit the most abortions?
Definition must always be the starting point of debate, for if the terms are used equivocally, no one stands to understand what implications must follow. Comparisons, like analogies, always fall short of equivalent correspondence, but principles upon which policies are built will have their necessary implications, regardless of how closely they resemble previous atrocities, or indeed, no matter how much worse the atrocities that follow become.
God alone orchestrates the outworking of circumstances. It may be that Barak’s intentions are less heinous than Hitler’s, yet they reap more devastating effects because of the circumstances that God orchestrates around Barak’s principled decisions. It may be that God shows mercy and imposes circumstances to prevent what would otherwise follow.
So many folks get caught up in the details, the concrete, the minutiae that they fail to consider the general, the unified, the organizing principle from which determinations on the concrete level are derived.
Joshua B.
And keep in mind that there have been those who have forever said that socialism principles are really quite good but the revolutions they sponsor are always betrayed by some evil man (think Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini), who if he had not been the problem, socialism would have worked out to be beautiful beyond describing.
Your Professor sounds like the characters in Lewis’s Pilgrims regress who describes Cow’s milk as urine. Only your professor is working in reverse. Whereas the Lewis characters took the good and made it ugly, your professor looks to take the ugly and make it acceptable. Academic sophistry knows no boundaries.
Thanks for the contribution.
Joshua M,
Yes, it is a sad day when our champions are notorious blackguards.
Diogenes continues to look for an honest man.
Indeed Bret, and it is strange to me because this professor claims to believe in human frailty, yet not in original sin. He is a convert to Judaism (grew up Lutheran and has a broad, though sometimes inaccurate, knowledge of the Bible, Church History, and Theology), and exhibits the sort of humanistic casuistry prevalent in that tradition.
Human frailty but not original sin?
Hmmm … I wonder where the distinction between those two exist?
I’ve emailed him back and forth on the matter. He believes that sin enters through the emotions or sensual passions, as a result of God’s divine design for humanity. I questioned him on this Open Theism and he basically accepted an open view of God. He pit orthodoxy and orthopraxy as opposed to each other, rather than the latter being dependent upon the other (emphasizing that “the Almighty” would rather have us do what is right than be correct about some abstract doctrine).
For all his erudition, he is quite confused on basic levels, and when confronted with the contradictions, he seems content to allow the contradictions to stand as is, or perhaps he suspects them to result in an Hegelian dialectical transcendence (he does seem to favor Hegel). He is self-admittedly a rationalizer, but he seems dispassionate about questioning his basic assumptions.
Another of my professors is more inclined to study Nietzsche, and he is both smarter and more confusing a figure than my Jewish professor. You may pray that the Lord gives me the boldness and wisdom in my opportunities with them.
Bret,
I’ve been on vacation and away from the news for a bit but did Obama repeat this the day of the election?
I thought I caught a blurb about this while walking past a tv on the 4th.
Jerry,
I don’t know that Obama has said this publicly again since his election.
Saying it once in July is one to many times. Also his new chief of staff has something vaguely similar in a recent book he has written. Only with Rahm Emanuel it was mandatory Civilian corps service upon graduation from High school.
What a weird world. We have a President with the name of Barack Hussein and he has a chief of staff named Rahm Israel. Talk about bringing the Middle East problems to our shore.
This doesn’t bode well: http://change.gov/americaserves/
So far, especially given Obama’s chief of staff choice, I don’t think any of the pre-election hand-wringing about his administration “abandoning” Israel was justified.
I don’t know Joshua. Louis Farakhan was gushing about Obama the other day. I don’t know how Obama is going to balance the love of Rahm with the love of Farakhan.
One of those two people are bound to be disappointed before it is all said and done.
I suppose it is a bit early to tell. I don’t know how he will strike that balance either. Politicians are masters of doublethink and doubletalk though.
Bret, I just got home and read through this post and comments. I had no idea about Rahm Israel Emmanuel’s full name. His last name, of course, means “God with us.” Sigh. I imagine Tim LaHaye is working on his new bestseller right now. God does have a sense of humor.
Joshua B., you are brilliant. I loved the long comment about your professor disavowing socialism while he embraces all its principles. I have run up against this recently (Bret knows of which I speak). My son Pieter just posted this link from Lew Rockwell which might be helpful for those who need evidence that yes, Virginia, there is Marxism in Amerika:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/higgs/higgs94.html
“The army in particular must be sharply removed from all influence of the individual states. The coming National Socialist state must not fall into the error of the past and attribute to the army a function which it has not and must not have. The German army does not exist to be a school for the preservation of tribal particularities, but should rather be a school for the mutual understanding and adaption of all Germans.”
Mein Kampf p 577
Jerry,
The last comment is particularly important given the push that will come in an Obama administration to allow open homosexuality in the military. The purpose of such a move will be for the adaptation of all Americans to homosexuality.
The military has always been understood as a place where social engineering for the nation can occur.
Thanks for the weblink Carmon, and for the kind compliment.
~Joshua